Advances in the field of semiconductor manufacturing have decreased the achievable minimum feature size. This decrease in feature size has the undesirable side effect of increasing the capacitive coupling between adjacent devices. As the amount of interconnecting metallurgy increases, the capacitive coupling problem impedes performance. Efforts to minimize the effects of capacitive coupling include isolating wiring into levels with insulators or air gaps between the levels.
Due to the reduction in device size, the cross-sections of the metal connectors are correspondingly reduced. This increases the electrical resistance per unit length of these connectors, and thereby increases the generation of heat via resistive heating of the metallurgy. Compounding the problem is the additional heat generated by the charging and discharging of the devices themselves.
While heat can be extracted through the base of the silicon chip, additional cooling is highly desirable. Large systems have employed mechanical refrigeration systems, but are limited by the bulk of the condenser technology and the attainable heat transfer coefficients. Such mechanical refrigeration systems may not by desirable for small and/or portable systems.
Thermoacoustic cooling uses sound waves to control temperature, but has not been routinely used to cool semiconductor structures because of the difficulty in coupling the cooling system to the semiconductor structure due to problems such as ultrasonic cavitations and inefficient thermal coupling.